For just a second, after Betty’s outburst, it felt like everything hung in limbo.

No one moved, no one spoke.

It was so quiet a pin drop would have been loud.

Then, everything happened all at once.

Utter pandemonium.

The Supervisor rammed himself against the wall of Hal’s makeshift prison, over and over again, as if he could break through with sheer determination. Mal drew his bow, aiming it at the prison, while Aradie hooted loudly, spreading her wings in defiance, her sharp gaze directed at Supervisor.

Hal stood leaning against the wall, studying his fingernails with an air of boredom. He didn’t even flinch when the Supervisor threw his weight against the wall.

Quinn knew that if she’d erected it, the wall would have buckled. Malakai put his bow away in one swift movement and knelt down, sword drawn, in front of Quinn.

“Oh, stop it,” she said, irritated. “You’ve only just recovered. I’m not having you get injured again.”

Malakai shot her a slightly hurt look.

“Mal, you have no magic.” She did her best to keep the worry and pleading tone out of her voice. “I am not risking you getting hurt. You can deal with me being snappy later if you want. I’m concerned.”

In the meantime, Lynx went to stand next to Betty, glared at the Supervisor through the wall of the prison. Suddenly, she reached into a tiny pouch on her hip and threw out what looked like glitter. Not just any normal glitter, but that white, silvery, super sparkly sort of glitter that got everywhere. As it flew through the air, there seemed to be a lot more of it than could fit in the tiny Sprite’s hands. It went straight through the barrier and settled all throughout the prison cell spell.

“Damn you, Sprite, damn you,” the Supervisor screamed, retracting its fists with a hiss. The pounding against the enclosure stopped.

Quinn watched as Aradie flew to her shoulder and settled back down. She couldn’t help but imagine Aradie as a tiny human with a lap full of popcorn watching the entire scene. Quinn flexed and felt her scales ripple all over her body, up to and including her face. She knew the ones that covered her face were usually translucent. She crouched down to look at where the Supervisor was now kneeling on the floor inside of the spell cell. Quinn pushed up the arms of her hoodie, revealing a light smattering of beautifully glowing blue scales. She could feel the strength running through her, strength that gave her confidence.

She sat there, looking at the Supervisor, who glared back at her, his smoky black eyes now tinged with red, his face nothing like Misha’s. Quinn felt a pang of loss. She wondered if they’d really lost the golem. She hoped not. She’d gotten a bit attached to Misha.

“So, Betty,” she said to the little sprite still hovering halfway up, “are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

Betty stopped and then fluttered down to her. “Oh, I am so sorry, Librarian. I did realize you were here, but I didn’t quite realize you were here.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “You’re realizing I’m here?”

“Yes, that’s why I am here,” Betty said.

Quinn looked at the sprite, who was definitely not being deliberately obtuse, but was instead wrapped up in something that Quinn didn’t understand. Betty took a few seconds to come together and turn to Quinn, despite the Supervisor who was once again screaming and bashing the walls to get out of the enclosure. Quinn actually thought that the Supervisor was trying to escape from the glitter Betty had thrown in. She wanted to know more about that. “Come on, Betty, tell me.”

“You see, I was helping out at the front desk where, you know, is where I should be. I was getting used to everybody. Dottie and Geneva have been very helpful. And Eric, well, Eric leaves a lot to be desired, but I think his heart’s in the right place. He really does love to give out fines...”

“I know all about them,” Quinn kept her tone as even as possible. “What I need to know is why you came bursting in here and did what you just did.”

“Sorry. You see, I felt an aura wave of someone I didn’t think could possibly be here. It grabbed a hold of me and I raced in here and realized that you had Supervisor in here,” Betty paused and then continued again with more emphasis. “The Supervisor. They were the supervisor for a very long time, right Lynx?.”

“Yes,” Lynx said. “This was the Supervisor before I performed the emergency shutdown. I think he was around for three or four Librarians.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “The last three or four Librarians. So way before Esotar and Korradine?”

“Yes, way before. We don’t change supervisory golems with every Librarian. That would just be absurd. The only reason we had to restart our supervisory golem was because the Library had basically had a complete and utter reset,” Lynx said, as if it made all the sense in the world. And when Quinn thought about it, it really did.

“So you sensed him, his essence of his aura, like, you know, his projection, how he projects himself and just his signature, his magical signature. So I came in and I realized that you had just trapped the Supervisor.”

“They really didn’t give them names, eh?” Quinn muttered.

“They really didn’t. His name is just Supervisor. Of course, people didn’t call me Supervisory Library Assistant. They just called me my name.” Betty sounded perplexed.

Quinn had to suppress a laugh because it wasn’t a laughable situation, but the comments struck her has comical.

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“Explain to me why the Supervisory Golem of your time has taken over my Supervisory Golem, Misha, because frankly, Misha means a lot to me and I don’t want to give them up.” Quinn realized just how true the words were once she’d uttered them.

A ripple passed through the Supervisory Golem. The body shifted ever so slightly. Not completely back to Misha, but about halfway there. The eyes flickered. One of them changed like a moon reflection.

“I will fight, Librarian,” Misha’s voice echoed, and then it was gone.

Quinn leaned forward, not far enough to be pulled into the cell, but enough to let herself understand that Misha was really still in there.

“So,” she said with renewed positivity, “how do we separate them?”

“That’s not going to be easy, Quinn,” Lynx said. “They’re suffused. They’re basically the same.”

“No, they’re not.” Quin was confident she was right. “Misha just reached out... they are not the same.”

“Well, they’re really not,” Betty said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. You see, if they were completely the same, then I wouldn’t have been able to sense the Supervisor’s essence separately. They would have been mixed. When Misha is there, I could only sense Misha. But now that the Supervisor has emerged, I can’t sense Misha unless they exert themselves like they just did.”

“So, do you think we can actually separate them?” Quinn asked.

“I’m not sure,” Hal said. “What I can tell you is that right now, Supervisor can’t hear anything you’re saying because I locked sound from entering the enclosure. I do know it’ll be difficult to separate them.”

Quinn looked at Malakai. “I think we need Harish’s help. He’s here, I can sense him. I need somebody who understands this whole thing on a more engineer-like level.” She turned her attention back to Betty and Hal as Malakai nodded and dashed out of the room. “Wait, so what’s happening? Misha is in there? Misha’s real?”

“Misha is, for want of a better word, the personality that developed over the top of the hidden original that remained in the core even after being wiped and reset.” Hal mused, sounding contemplative.

“Sort of like a backdoor Trojan horse sort of virus, right?” Quinn asked, trying to understand the concept properly.

Betty blinked at her and Hal laughed. “I don’t know what any of that is, Quinn, but I do know that this is like a data stream in the system that received a signal to run. I’m unsure what triggered it, whether it was the Library opening or a certain amount of filters going online. Whatever it was, it woke up when it was activated. Now Misha is technically, I think, their own golem. But I need you to understand,” Hal said, his tone soothing, “this prison spell won’t do anything if the person remains calm and collected and ready to listen, answer questions, and assist us. But it isn’t a friendly cell. It’s designed to break down someone who refuses to capitulate and harbors hostility. The more that Supervisor struggles and protests, the more they hurt themself and thereby also hurts Misha.”

Quinn gasped softly. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

Hal waited for a second before continuing. “In this case, Supervisor’s actions appear deliberate. The difference between an organic being as we are and a created being as the golems are is that they’ll break down quicker. Their minds aren’t as resilient as ours are. We have the ability to reconnect, to rejuvenate parts of ourselves that get damaged. The self-healing that our bodies do is not something that is a part of a golem’s make-up.”

“Exactly,” Betty said. “Golems are capable of regenerating themselves to a certain degree, but not when they’re fighting over resources and, well, I guess real estate in this case.”

Quinn knew exactly what they were saying. She could feel it through her connection to the Library. She could sense just how much Misha was being disturbed. And now that the Supervisor was there, she could also sense their presence in the system.

“This is- “Harish walked into the room and stopped abruptly, frowning at the golem in the spell cell. “The core is in disconnect. What’s- “ he closed his eyes for a moment. “This is, this is unprecedented.”

“I’m really starting to dislike that word,” Quinn muttered under her breath.

“Apologies, Librarian,” Harish seemed somewhat confused, as if he couldn’t quite wrap his head around the golem in front of him. “My wife is with Milaro. What’s going on? That’s not- is that Misha?”

Links caught him up very fast.

Harish cleared his throat. “If we’re not careful, the core will degrade to such an extent that nothing about it or them will function. We won’t be able to get any answers out of Supervisor, and Misha’s entire personality will disappear.”

“You mean it’ll kill Misha? The cell will wipe her out?” Quinn couldn’t keep her voice from cracking.

“It’s not the cell doing that. Because the Supervisor currently exists and is aware in the same core and same body at the same time instead of lying dormant like did until more recently, the body and the core will begin to break down if they haven’t already. It’s not capable of being a dual core. It wasn’t built for this. The body will degrade as fast, if not faster.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Quinn asked. “Can’t we- can’t we put them in stasis, Hal?” She turned to him, oddly upset at the turn of events.

“I don’t- I don’t think the stasis we’ve been using will work on inorganic beings.” The Commander said softly. “Golems are creations that operate differently than what you’re expecting them to.”

Quinn felt a mild flutter of panic. She didn’t want Misha to die, especially not now that she realized that Misha hadn’t exactly been in control of herself the entire time. They’d had conversations. Misha had given her confidence, cheered her up. She went to speak, but Harish beat her to it.

“No, Hal, there is-“ Harish stopped, pausing. His eyebrows shot up as if he’d just had the best thought. “I do believe with a bit of your help, Betty, I might be able to work with this.”

“Sprite dust?” she asked brightly.

“Yes, any you can spare. There are several options that I can attempt, Librarian. I do not guarantee that they’ll work, but if we can bring them to a point where they’re offset together, canceling each other out, so to speak, then I should- be able to contain them. Then I might be able to work on extracting them from each other. I just have to go and get the containment fields. I’ll be right back.” He dashed out of the room much faster than Quinn had ever seen him move before. She sighed and hoped that he was right.

“Librarian?” Misha’s voice came through, crackling. “I will fight. I will not allow Supervisor to take over and to stop what we’ve repaired. I am sorry I did not notice. Thank you.”

And then Misha’s presence was gone again. The Supervisors didn’t come out either. Quinn blinked back a tear, staring at the now prone figure in the cell. She didn’t want Misha to be gone. Misha had been kind and efficient and was always there.

Harish dashed back into the room with a massive box. It looked like it was a dark metal all around and it had a strange clasp. He placed it down and opened it, revealing a black-lined interior. “I need you to render them immovable so I can have them placed in here.”

“While I think Misha already took care of that, I can reinforce it.” Hal said, and activated the cell, bringing it in smaller until it was curled around Supervisor’s curled up body. He then activated telekinesis, which made Quinn raise an eyebrow, and leveraged it into the large box Harish had placed on the floor. A strange sucking sound echoed through the room and Hal let his shielding go as the lid closed. It sounded like a vacuum. And suddenly Quinn could sense Misha only very faintly.

“Do you think we can save Misha?” Quinn concentrated on not expecting the worst.

“You’ll need to appoint another supervisory golem. At least for now.” Harish looked uncomfortable. “I can’t promise anything.”